Gender Stereotypes And The Path Reversal Test Essay

Gender Stereotypes And The Path Reversal Test Essay

Essay Preview

There are many commonly known gender stereotypes; one of them is that men have better spatial abilities than women. The results of the experiment done by Liu, Levy, Barton, and Iaria (2011) showed this stereotype is not completely prejudicial because adult men outperformed adult women on several spatial tests, including cognitive map use, formation; and path reversal. The gender difference on the path reversal test is the highest among all tests (see appendix 1). Path reversal test evaluates how well do the participants recognize a reverse route back to the origin without the help of landmarks. In order to successfully complete this test, the participants need to be able to accurately estimate the distances between turns, how many turns are there and the angle of each turn. This test also requires the abilities to integrate optic flow and vestibular information with mental rotation and mental imagery.
One of the reasons men perform better at this could be due to that they are better at judging distances because they tend to favor allocentric strategy during navigation and determine their directions by referring to the absolute position between landmarks (Li, 2014). In comparison, women often use egocentric strategy and determine their direction by relating to local landmarks, so they perform better than men on tests that required them to recall landmarks or street names. The ability to perform mental rotation also distinct greatly between genders, with men perform much better than women, but this difference only appeared in adults. Vestibular information is a type of proprioceptive cue, which is also crucial in this test because this cue helps people to update knowledge about their orientations and positions during navigation (K...

... middle of paper ...

...rences of spatial ability exist, how to decrease it, are very important since spatial skills are very often related to other cognitive abilities and could lead to higher academic achievement (Weckbacher & Okamoto, 2012). Once we realized it is the environmental factors that contributed to the gender differences, we can try to fix it by changing the ways of how we treat girls and boys differently (Baenninger & Newcombe, 1995). To improve on spatial skills, female’s cognitive ability on other areas would be enhanced as well, that will ultimately decrease gender biases and promote gender equality. Further researches can be done on which activity benefit girls more on improving spatial ability, and we can adapt school curriculums, encourage girls to participate in those masculine or “boyish” activities, and have a future generation without the existence of gender bias.

- According to Nielsen the average American watches about 5 hours of television per day (Koblin) Nielsen said that in 2015, Americans spent about nine and half hours each day consuming content (Koblin) but, do we ever take the time to break down gender stereotypes in advertising and commercials. Gender stereotypes are “generalizations about the roles of each gender. Gender roles are generally neither positive nor negative; they are simply inaccurate generalizations of the male and female attributes” (Brewer) but, what about in advertising and commercials.... [tags: Gender, Gender role, Woman, Stereotype]

- Why is it that people stereotype males and females no matter what nationality they are. Because we are all the same in the end but the media makes many people think differently. The general public thinks that all females like doing their hair, makeup, dolls and love light colors like color pink. Males on the other hand likes cars, playing video games, sports and like dark colors like blue. Advertisements are gender stereotyping whether people notice or care. Females are mostly openly stereotyped compared to the males because of our lack of abilities that males have.... [tags: Gender, Gender role, Woman, Stereotype]

- Gender stereotypes are vastly present throughout the Walking Dead. Each of these characters plays an important role to the plot of the show. The episode “First Time Again” follows a ride as the group fends off their lives against horrid zombies. Some characters follow the nature as being masculine, while other characters tend to be more feminine. The characters shown in the Walking Dead resemble common gender stereotypes through the way they portray themselves. Rick is one of the main characters shown in the Walking Dead.... [tags: Stereotype, Gender, Stereotypes, Hair]

- One day, a woman and her daughter went to the store. As the little girl ran to the toy section, her mother had assumed that she would go to where the girls’ toys were. When the mom approached the toy section, she couldn’t find her daughter even though she looked everywhere in the girls’ toy section. As she panicked, she decided to check the boys’ section and found her daughter sitting there, admiring the toys. Her mother was startled as she thought that it was strange of her to be looking at toys that are supposed to be for the opposite gender.... [tags: Gender, Gender role, Masculinity, Man]

- Gender stereotypes are mostly taken for granted at a young age: girls are told to play with dolls and boys are told to play with trucks. But as children grow older they find themselves in a world where the reality of gender roles and stereotypes aren’t acknowledged, and the illusion of gender neutrality is commended. If gender roles are becoming more neutral, then it would follow that gender role stereotypes are also becoming more lax. However, in actuality this is not true. Banerjee and Lintern (2000) examined the salience of children’s preference for toys in private and public settings.... [tags: Gender Stereotypes, Studies]

- What is gender. The formal definition is, “the cultural social and psychological meanings that are associated with masculinity and femininity.” In all reality there is no differences between the two sexes. We are actually the same in a lot of aspects. Then why do gender-role stereotypes still exist now that it is the twenty-first century. To start with gender-role stereotypes are, “ the beliefs and expectation of people that hold about the typical characteristics, preferences and behavior of man and women.” Gender-stereotypes come directly from gender norms.... [tags: Gender, Male, Female, Heteronormativity]

- It is common knowledge that gender is greatly influenced by culture, thus creating gender roles. While gender is not necessarily the biological sex that a person is born with, society often raises children as either a boy or a girl based on the parts they are born with. Growing up, everyone experiences the typical influence of what is appropriate for boys and what is appropriate for girls. Solomon exemplifies his mother’s pressure to make him more masculine when he was a child. He had asked for a pink balloon but “[his] mother counter that [he] didn’t want a pink balloon and reminded [him] that [his] favorite color was blue” (Solomon 374).... [tags: Homosexuality, Sexual orientation, Gender]

- You make assumptions of people as soon as you see them. Do you ever look at someone and make assumptions right away about that person without knowing them. Stereotypes occur without you realizing it. Stereotype is “to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same” (“Stereotype”). I believe everywhere in our American society we either stereotype or witness stereotyping because it has become a natural instinct. Psychologists say we categorize -- or stereotype -- by age and race and gender, because our brains are wired to do so automatically (Stossel and Kendall para.... [tags: Stereotype, Stereotypes, Gender, Stereotype threat]

- Gender Stereotypes Among Children's Toys When you walk into the toy section of any store, you do not need a sign to indicate which section is the girls’ side and which section is the boys’ side. Aside from all the pink, purple, and other pastel colors that fill the shelves on the girls’ side, the glitter sticks out a lot as well. The boys’ toys however are mostly dark colors – blue, black, red, gray, or dark green. The colors typically used on either side are very stereotypical in themselves.... [tags: Stereotypes Toys Gender Essays Compare]